Foreign spouses, children to benefit from U.S. immigration policy change

In the latest move to clear paths to legal residency for illegal immigrants, the Obama administration on Wednesday ruled that thousands of foreign spouses and children can stay with their U.S. citizen relatives while applying for green cards.

The policy "reduces long periods of separation between U.S. citizens and their immediate relatives," Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said Wednesday in a conference call.

Until now, thousands of illegal immigrant spouses, parents and children of U.S. citizens had to return to their native countries to apply for permanent U.S. residency, risking months or years of separation from their families.

"Most of my clients weren't willing to take the risk of not being able to come back," said Bay Area immigration attorney Randall Caudle.

Weighing the separation risk against the risk of being undocumented, they "stayed here ... without legal status of any kind," he added.

The Obama administration announced the proposal last year, but sought months of comments before making it a rule to be published today in the Federal Register. The policy will take effect on March 4.

Knowing that a change was coming, many lawyers advised their clients to wait for it before they sought permanent residency.

For years, Mexican immigrant spouses and children of U.S. citizens have had to cross the Texas border to violence-wracked Ciudad Juárez for interviews at the U.S. Consulate there, the only American office in Mexico processing such requests for permanent residency.

But leaving the United States after an illegal entry triggered a 10-year or three-year bar on returning, meaning relatives would also have to apply to waive the bar. Three-quarters of immigrants seeking the waivers are from Mexico.

Those seeking permanent residency will still have to go to Juárez but no longer will have to wait for many months in Mexico as the U.S. government evaluates their requests.

The shift is the latest in a series of executive changes made by the Obama administration as it seeks broader immigration reforms, including a path to citizenship for nearly all the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants.

More than 300,000 young illegal immigrants have applied since August for new work permits granted to college students and other law-abiding young adults and teenagers brought to the country as children.